Southern movies like Pushpa: The Raj, RRR, and now KGF 2 have become pan India blockbusters. While it is the first time that the South Indian film industry has delivered such back-to-back pan India hits, the credit certainly goes to SS Rajamouli’s vision and Baahubali which made Prabhas a national superstar. His success motivated the other stars from the Southern film world to expand their reach and attract a nationwide following.
But are all Southern movies receiving the same response as RRR or KGF 2 in the Northern belt? Has the interest and perspective of the Hindi-speaking audience suddenly changed so much that they are eager to watch all the Southern superhits in dubbed version? The truth is that despite a few South Indian movies making a big impact in the Northern belt, fans are really not interested in watching all the Southern dubbed movies. Rather, they very much expect their Bollywood superstars to come out with such big hits because that is what they are always looking for.
Be it a movie like Syeraa or Thalapathy Vijay’s recent movie Beast, both these movies ended up being a disaster in the Northern belt. Even a movie like Bheemla Nayak led by Pawan Kalyan is not getting the right release schedule in theaters of the Northern belt.
From the producer’s point of view, the deal is not always profitable. They have to spend a lot of money for dubbing in different languages because the lead stars from the South are quite insistent about this. That is why this business of releasing a Southern movie across India is putting a lot of stress on the filmmakers because they are finding it difficult to recover the expenses spent on dubbing and India-wide promotions. While the distributors are ready to give the Southern movies a chance, they definitely are not ready to take a risk and hence, all the expenses are being borne by the producers.
So, while a few movies from the South might have made an impact on the Hindi-speaking audience across the country, Bollywood continues to be the main source of entertainment across pan India because not all Southern movies or superstars have the ability to make a nationwide impact.